New Windows Live releases - including Search and Toolbar betas

Microsoft is releasing a series of new products at ETech. They include Windows Live Search Beta, Windows Live Toolbar Beta (including announcing the acquisition of Onfolio), and the next version of Live.com. Here is an early peek at the new features, from Microsoft:

Windows Live Search:
"Windows Live Search is a unified search service that answers your questions with simple precision - giving you the viewing and organizational tools, customization options, and specific categories that help you find what you’re looking for - on the Web, your PC, your local community/geography, your homepage, your mobile phone, etc.

Windows Live Search delivers precise results via a next generation design, with advanced tools for helping people quickly find, view, organize, and preview search results - delivering unparalleled control over the search experience. With simple precision tools, you can search within the context of the task you are performing and ultimately get your answer faste

Through new features like search preview, scoping tools, a search slider bar that increases the level of result information on the results page, and smart scroll that enables you to view all search results without moving from page to page, Windows Live Search delivers unparalleled control over the search experience.

Windows Live Search delivers rich search categories, such as the entirely new image search beta, which launches today - with unmatched viewing and organizational tools. We will have a wide range of search categories - our leading Local service and new image search beta are great examples of the innovation we will deliver.

New image search is particularly powerful, enabling people to search across millions of images and receive simply precise results via smart scroll, thumbnail image sizing customization, film strip view and the ability to see the full image without leaving the results page.

Search customization: Empowering people to completely customize their Windows Live Search service, a beta of the macros service for Windows Live Search will also be available, providing powerful tools that enable people to save and share specific queries, and customize their search results.

For example, if you’re interested in tracking the Oscars from your favorite entertainment Web sites, you can easily create a custom query that only pulls results from the sites you’re most interested in.

Ubiquitous search: Windows Live Search will also deliver this unified search experience across all of the upcoming Windows Live services, such as Windows Live Messenger and Windows Live Mail.

Windows Live Toolbar:
Enabling people to use Windows Live Search from any webpage, the Windows Live Toolbar beta launches today and includes the integration of Onfolio technology, helping you discover, save and reuse your personal and professional Web research with collection and organizational tools - delivering unmatched value for Toolbar users ($29.95 Onfolio product is included).

Onfolio Acquisition:
The strategic investment in OnFolio provides users with tools to enable them to save, collect, and share any part or the full web page of the information they discover while searching the Web.

The Windows Live Toolbar beta along with the Onfolio Add-in for Windows Live Toolbar beta is available now and can be downloaded at http://ideas.live.com.

People will benefit from:

• Client side Research Collections -Onfolio technology allows consumers to save research collections. As web search becomes more accurate and common to the way users browse and find information on the internet today, it becomes important to save this research in an organized way next to your browser.
• Managing RSS Feeds - For customers who want to keep track of more than a few RSS feeds, Onfolio’s feeds tab is a convenient and productive way to organize feeds by topic.
• RSS Aggregator - Onfolio also allows customers to view RSS feeds in the browser which becomes a central location for consuming online content.

Live.com
Live.com will also release a significant new update, including a new design and features that help users quickly customize their homepage, preview content, create multiple pages based on their interests, and add their favorite content from millions of information sources and RSS feeds.

For the first time, Windows Live Search is now available on Live.com, as well as several new, advanced search services including the ability to add persistent search results to your Live.com homepage, subscribe to RSS feeds directly from search results, and view search results in the best contextual format.

The combination of next generation design, easy customization, and unparalleled search services make Live.com the best place to search on the web today best place to search on the web today."